Month: November 2016

What is sponsored content? If you’ve ever read an article, watching a short film or laughed at a joke that had an ad attached to it, you’ve been exposed to sponsored content. And it’s not a bad thing. It’s especially not a bad thing if you are the sponsor.

Sponsored content has had an odd relationship with consumers over the last few decades. Most people used to associate it with content that wasn’t telling the truth. They didn’t like the idea of having to read, watch or listen to something that was coming from a marketer.

But over the years, people got to be less annoyed with the association between sponsored content and ads. If you do it right, your business or organization can use sponsored content to your advantage.

First, a blatant ad is easy to find, but a subtle ad amidst quality information or some great, interesting content is less abrasive. Make all of your ad spots natural within your sponsored content.

Engage consumers.

Second, you want to engage consumers by giving them something that they’ll actually be interested in. Provide them with a funny video or a beautiful photo for starters.

Offer your actual knowledge.

Lastly, give them something for free, and here, we’re talking about your knowledge. Don’t give them products or actual services. Instead, you’ll want to give them gardening tips if you have a company that makes gardening supplies. If you sell makeup or art a makeup artist, offer up your best tips and tricks for a flawless face. This makes the customer happy, and that’s always a good thing.

Twitter executives are expected to announce layoffs very soon. Analysts expect that this social media company will announce an 8 percent cut before or during their quarterly earnings report, which is set for October 27th.

That 8 percent cut translates to around 300 Twitter employees. There has been no clear indication yet as to which departments will be the hardest hit, but most analysts expect the sales team to experience the most layoffs.

Just a year ago, Twitter also announced an 8 percent layoff around this same time. That was also the time Jack Dorsey, an original co-founder of Twitter, stepped in to become the company’s CEO. Dorsey also serves as CEO for the financial services company Square, Inc.

Twitter executives have not told the media if these cuts will affect their Periscope division. Periscope, which allows people to stream live videos, was bought by Twitter in 2015.

Twitter has been facing many challenges recently. Some of the major issues Twitter is trying to solve at the moment include increasing their user growth organically, dealing with harassment issues, and reigning in their spending.

Many stockholders were actually optimistic about Twitter’s prospects just a few weeks ago. Back then, there were major rumors circulating all around Wall Street about a takeover bid for Twitter. Twitter’s stock, which trades under the ticker TWTR, went as high as $24 at the beginning of October. Some of the companies said to be interested in acquiring Twitter included Microsoft, Google, Salesforce.com, and the Walt Disney Company.

However, since Salesforce.com and Disney have openly said they will not be buying Twitter anytime soon, the stock has plummeted in recent days. The stock is currently hovering around $17.

Marketing and advertising used to be something you did at the supermarket, on billboards and through fliers or the newspaper. Magazines soon caught on, and after that, the advent of radio meant that ads could be broadcast into your homes whether you liked it or not. Do you want to listen to that favorite radio program? Well, you have to listen to this ad as well. Naturally, television made this even better and easier, and the Internet just made things out of control.

In that short history of advertising, you can easily see that advertising agencies and marketers will find a way to market and sell their services and products no matter what the medium is. And if the medium of the day in this day and age is social media, that’s where the money is.

If you have a company or business that is looking to sell something online, you’ll want to take as much advantage of social media business and advertising tactics as you can, and fortunately, it’s easier than you think.

The first thing that you need to do is to remember that branding is your friend. Everything that you put out there needs to go back to your brand. Put your logo, mascot or emblem on all products. Make t-shirts and wear them in photos. Have a go-to hashtag to use for any type of Tweets or pictures you post.

Lastly, be present on social media everyday. You need to be committed to posting pictures, messages, Tweets, hashtags and videos so that people see you around and associate your name with good vibes. Doing all of this will set you on the path for social media business success.

Todd Lubar has had an illustrious career which has made him a wealthy man. Over that duration, he has mentored and inspired many aspiring real estate enthusiasts. Todd began as a loan originator with a company known as Crestar Mortgage Corporation. Here, he gained the necessary experience that would later come in handy when dealing with his personal businesses. He learned the tricks of the real-estate trade from other industry stakeholders like real estate agents, CPA’s, financial planners and insurance agents as well.

The First $100 Million

1999 was a great year for Todd Lubar. He joined the Legacy Financial Group as an equity analyst. Progressively, his skills refined and decided to take it up a notch by opening Legendary Properties, LLC. In no time, this residential development company had purchased, rehabilitated, sold and profited from the over 200 properties. The units ranged from single family houses to small estates. His charm and charisma enabled made it possible for him to connect with plumbers, masons, landscapers and other experts needed in the construction of properties. All in all, he is credited with making well over 100 million dollars.

Charter Funding was founded in 2003. It was a subsidiary of First Magnus Financial Corporation. First Magnus is ranked as one of the largest privately held mortgages in the US. Again, this merger would prove to be useful shortly. Todd was very smart to venture into a realm which was previously overlooked by the traditional lenders. His risk assessment skills are currently ranked among the most-sought-out after in the entire marketplace. Few candidates can claim to have transacted over 7000 transactions.

Crash of ‘08

The upheavals which rocked the housing and the real estate markets in 2007 and 2008 caused Todd to shift his attention elsewhere. The investor decided to venture into commercial demolition and in Automotive Scrap metal recycling business. His efforts paid off brilliantly. Soon Legendary Properties, LLC started being traded on the public stock exchange market.

Todd attended Sidwell Friends Schools in Washington DC from 1977 to 1987. He proceeded to The Peddie School in Hightstown NJ. He later enrolled at the Syracuse University for a B.A. He graduated in 1995. He is married. Find him on social media where he loves to share with his fans and followers.

The popular social media site Snapchat is reportedly getting ready to go on the public market. Leaked information on the company said Snapchat wants to raise $4 billion in their first year on the stock market. If everything runs smoothly, Snapchat will be released as an IPO in 2017.

Valuations for Snapchat vary widely, but all investors expect this stock will be one of the most high profile IPOs to enter the market in a long time. Estimates for Snapchat’s value range from $25 billion to $40 billion. Interestingly, this company couldn’t get a valuation above $20 billion when it raised funds to be an IPO last year.

Snapchat’s sales figures are expected to be between $250-$350 million this year. Next year, Snapchat is planning to reach the astonishing $1 billion mark in revenue.

Although people know this company by the name “Snapchat” today, the company did officially change its name to “Snap, Inc.” in September of this year. It was then that executives from Snapchat told reporters about special sunglasses they were working on that will be able to record video. These videos can then be instantly posted onto Snapchat’s platform.

Snapchat has not announced just yet when they are planning on entering the IPO market. Some investors say Snapchat could be on the stock market as soon as March of 2017.

For those who don’t know, Snapchat was founded in 2011 by students at Stanford University. Users of Snapchat send pictures across the social media platform that automatically self-delete within a short moment. The developers of Snapchat hoped that this self-deleting feature would encourage more honest and quirky conversations.

Some new features to the Snapchat app include a media area where people can read articles by outlets like Vice and ESPN. Snapchat currently has about 150 million users around the world.

The Midas Legacy is a leading financial and retirement consulting agency that has been offering people advise that is directed at enhancing their potential to succeed and make great achievements in their lives. With main offices at Winter Garden, Florida, The Midas Legacy has been serving a broad network of clients who seek advice and guidance on issues affecting their lives.

Most of those who seek the support of the agency include entrepreneurs, people looking to get early retirement and individuals who need to lead better and peaceful lives. With the primary plan of the company being to support people to help them achieve their goals, it has also been offering capital to its members to invest in the areas of entrepreneurship, real estate and natural health.

Imparting decision making skills to entrepreneurs

Entrepreneurs have been benefitting from The Midas Legacy in different ways, one of which is through helping them manage their businesses better for maximum returns. The Midas Legacy invites top financial experts who help individual investors understand market dynamics and the basics that run their businesses to achieve success. They also assist them by teaching them the art of analyzing situations and making decisions that have potential benefits in the near future.

Improving lives

Among the things The Midas Legacy works to achieve is offering individuals the ability to learn how to come up with disciplines that may impact their lives positively. They ensure their members learn how to locate options that can elevate them to a greater life even when one of their options has failed.

This process includes mentoring and workshops that expose the individuals to the real-world situations that affect their capability to achieve their goals and how they can overcome challenges. Most importantly, The Midas Legacy offers assistance to their members to ensure they lead healthy lives through professional advice and dietary recommendations.

Wealth management and retirement planning

Wealth management is specialty that many have not emerged so brilliant in and is one among few that is quite misunderstood. Same as retirement planning, wealth management is a necessary discipline that guides people who are looking for ways to manage their estate and wealth.

The Midas Legacy offers wealth management services and retirement planning advice that is directed at ensuring their members understand their position better. The transformation that comes with the services offered by the company can be felt in the long run and offers insight into the future.

Social media company Twitter’s stock immediately rose 4 percent after releasing better than expected earnings for the third quarter. In addition to Twitter’s better than expected earnings, this company announced that it will layoff 9 percent of their total workforce.

Twitter earned $616 million in revenue in the third quarter. Analysts were expecting a revenue around $606 million. Also, this company adjusted 13 cents per share, which was four cents higher than analysts’ predictions.

This social media company has had trouble getting new monthly active users to join their site in recent years. This quarter the social media company added a decent 4 million monthly active users, which gives Twitter a total community of around 317 million active users. The company also said that their daily user growth was accelerating by 7 percent in the most recent quarter.

Earlier in the week, Twitter executives said they would laying off 8 percent of their workforce. Apparently that number rose by 1 percent since that date. This 9 percent layoff translates to 350 Twitter employees. Executives hope these layoffs will streamline certain areas of Twitter’s business so they can operate more efficiently in the future.

Twitter said that this layoff was a part of a larger restructuring project. The Twitter team wants to make more partnerships and reorganize their marketing and sales teams. They also hope this restructuring will help them reach GAAP profitability by next year.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told reporters he believes this quarter’s great numbers are attributable to the company’s focus on enhancing Twitter’s new feed, improving the response to harassment issues, and offering more live and streaming videos via Periscope.

Keith Mann is a New York-based entrepreneur and the managing director of Dynamics Search Partners, one of the largest staffing agencies dedicated to finding the highest quality talent for firms in the hedge fund industry. Since 2013, Keith Mann and Dynamics Search Partners have been working with the Uncommon Schools of New York to raise money and further improve the excellent urban public charter schools that the Uncommon Schools of New York program create and manage.

As experts in recruitment, Mann and his staff have offered their expertise to students in helping them learn practical skills that will help them succeed in college and ultimately in their careers. When touring one school, Mann and other DSP representatives joined in on classes and met with each senior individually, answering questions about college, internships, and how to achieve future career goals. They even offered to continue reviewing resumes via email throughout the year, which students were thrilled about. DSP has also been integral to supporting the school financially. DSP contributed $10,000 to the school in 2013, and more recently in May of 2016, Mann and DSP helped raise over $22K for the Uncommon Schools of New York program. Naturally, the fundraising is important, but the on-going platform between students and Dynamics Search Partners is the most valuable product of the partnership.

Jason Halpern is an American businessman who has investment mainly in real estate. He was born on January 1, 1975. He is the founder and the managing partner of JMH Development. JMH is a family business that Jason founded in the 1990s. In 2010, Jason Halpern took control of JMH Developments. JMH developments are involved in developing properties for both commercial and rental purposes. The developments by JMH are well known because of their innovativeness. They are also located at well-placed locations which make them prime. Most properties that JMH create have proved their uniqueness in the United States real estate market. Other than developing from the start, they are also involved in renovation and restoration of historic properties. Currently, the firm has properties valued at $500 million in New York state projects.

Under the leadership of Jason Halpern, JMH developments have grown fast since 2010. His primary role at the firm is being the principal. Many of JMH properties are in flourishing markets such as Brooklyn and Miami. Halpern’s innovative approach in developing luxury properties has given the firm an edge in the real estate market. The JMH team which is led by Halpern is well versed with all aspects of development. These aspects include strategizing, branding and marketing. Halpern has led the company to focus on restoring of historic properties. This has been their philosophy since the inception of JMH.

One of the recent development by the company was the Aloft South Beach hotel in Miami. The hotel was to be opened early in 2015. This development was the restoration of the historic Motel Ankara. Motel Ankara was built in 1954 by Reiff and Feldman. The Aloft South Beach was to be the first newly constructed hotel from year 2009. The hotel name was changed to The Gates Hotel South Beach after changing the ownership. Jason Halpern says that the hotel was sold for 105 million dollars which can be approximated to 447,000 dollars per room.
Halpern and his team combine their knowledge of the market, their exceptional development skills and experience to develop high-quality properties that stand the proof of time. Besides being the principal of JMH, Jason Halpern is also the director at Parametric Dining LLC. The company is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was founded in 2012. Its two co-founders are Mr. Geoffrey Johnson and Mr. Jonathan Fiene. The company is a mobile technology company. It deals with creating software and interfaces for restaurants. Jason is undoubtedly one of the best leaders in the real estate industry in the USA. His vast experience has been instrumental in the success of JMH where he is the principle.

In a recent blog post, PayPal Holdings executives announced that they will be integrating a bit more with social media giant Facebook. Although users of Facebook could already use PayPal for services like paying for an Uber ride, now users of Facebook’s Messenger app will be able to pay various merchants on their online shops directly.

Facebook executives greeted this further partnership with excitement. They said they will welcome further integration with various payment services in the future.

Analysts believe that putting payments into social messaging may be the future for American transactions. Actually, the USA lags behind China in this regard. Many Chinese currently use chats or posts to directly exchange payments. With an average of one billion messages sent per month on the Messenger app, it certainly behooves PayPal to get involved with Facebook early on before the USA moves increasingly towards paying through messages.

Many people in the payment space have feared that tech companies might destabilize older businesses with new payment technologies and apps. However, this latest deal with PayPal shows that it might be more plausible for tech companies to make deals with those already established in the payment space.

PayPal representatives said that they believe tech companies will increasingly look to professional payment companies to integrate with since, as they put it, payment transactions are very difficult to handle nowadays. PayPal thinks that financial service companies should have no worries of Apple, Google, or Facebook taking over, since these tech companies really need the financial expertise only professional payment processing companies possess.

PayPal’s grand plan with this deal is to further drive their volume against competitors. PayPal also currently owns Venmo, another popular payment app that has transferred some $20 billion this year alone.

PayPal has been aggressive in forming alliances with Chinese giant Alibaba as well as the social media site Pinterest in recent months. PayPal hopes to make a strong foothold in these markets to be thede factoe-payment method for millennials.

Executives at PayPal have even been getting closer with Apple executives in recent years. Of course, Apple currently offers an Apple Pay service that competes with PayPal, but PayPal now owns Braintree payments software that allows merchants to use Apple Pay. Also, Apple allows Venmo to be used via their Apple iMessage service. People can even ask Siri, the voice-recognition software on Apple’s iPhone, to send money to a relative or friend via Venmo.

All of these deals make it clear that PayPal wants to dominate the 21st century’s digital wallet, especially on social media sites. PayPal’s stock (ticker PYPL) is currently trading around $43.